The life and experiences of a community college philosophy teacher, department chair and former debate coach.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Vacation update --- day of faces blasted out of mountians

After an exciting night in Alliance, NE and a visit to Carhenge, we took off for South Dakota -- via Chadron (and, my hubby fondly recalling a debate team saying from the NE state champs his junior year... 'did you say we are in Chadron, (big pause) --[yells] aw f*ck"... several times... it seems that the Nebraska Intercollegiat Speech and Debate championships were held at Chadron state college and the kids from Omaha weren't exactly happy to go to the other corner of the the state... but, hubby and Pony (his partner) won that year... so all was well there...

After Chadron we went to the Crazyhorse memorial --- amazing and worth the $10.00/person admission... We waited in the chilly wind for a scheduled explosion to carve the rock -- and all we saw was a puff of dust.... kind of a let-down, but the monument is really cool --it will be twice the size of Mt. Rushmore if they ever get it done.

It isn't far from Crazyhorse to Mt. Rushmore -- Which was pretty awsome in itself -- especially after we saw 10.5 with the storyline that a fault opened up between Washington and Jefferson --- it was nice to see it all in one piece. I'll post pictures tomorrow... the camera is in the car....

We are staying at a nice hotel in Rapid City -- after finding the mall an a Waldenbooks so we have something more to read... we tried to find reading material at the Alliance Wallmart -- but that wasn't really the best place to look... the Walden Books at the Rushmore Mall was a significant improvement. Also, Rapid City has a chocolate shop that has -- wait for it -- a DRIVE THRU... how wonderful is that? I almost want to move here for that alone...

Tomorrow the badlands, and Wedneday to home.... overall not a bad trip -- and not too expensive as these things go.. YEA! I LOVE booking hotels on the internet.